Sea assistance is substandard and ‘vulnerable’, say researchers. The Coast Guard must put things in order for a while

The Dutch Coast Guard is struggling with structural problems, which means that assistance at sea gets out of the sea too late. The Dutch Safety Board (OVV) concludes this in a report on the fire on the Fremantle Highway In 2023, one of the largest ship dramas in recent years. Because rescue helicopters were too late, crew members of the ship had to jump overboard. One of them died, six were seriously injured.

According to the research council, the rescue operation was anything but flawless and shows that the Dutch emergency aid at sea is ‘vulnerable’. With the increasing crowds on the North Sea, the chance of these types of events is increasing, the research council writes. That is why the Coast Guard must get its affairs in order ‘in the shortest possible term’.

Nobody makes a decision: the coast guard is waiting for the fire brigade, the fire brigade on the coast guard

After the evacuation written NRC That the rescue helicopters had not taken action quickly enough after the alarm report. The Coast Guard itself denied this. It was partly the reason for the Dutch Safety Board to investigate.

The rescue operation is described in the report from minute to minute. The horror power starts on Tuesday evening, July 25, 2023 at 11.43 pm when the Coast Guard receives a notification from the Fremantle Highway. The cargo ship sails near Ameland and transports thousands of cars. A fire broke out in a battery of an electric car. The Coast Guard assumes that the fire can still be extinguished, and calls on a Rotterdam fire brigade team that specializes in fire at sea: the Maritime Incident Response Group.

Smoke development

Two rescue helicopters, stationed in Den Helder and Central Zealand, are going to Rotterdam to pick up the fire brigade team. But at the airport in Rotterdam the doubt strikes: has the fire on the car ship not too big to extinguish? More and more disturbing information is coming in. For example, the engine of the ship has dropped out and there is plenty of smoke development. The fire brigade commander fears that his extinguishers can no longer be on board, and first wants more clarity before they go there. And so the rescue helicopters remain waiting for the airport in Rotterdam.

Then nobody makes a decision: the coast guard continues to wait for the fire brigade, the fire brigade on the coast guard. After more than an hour, nothing is still decided. « This situation could continue, » writes the Dutch Safety Board, because there was « no standard time » within which the fire brigade had to make a decision.

Moreover, the Coast Guard Center was « very busy at that time due to understaffing ». An explicit request from the captain to evacuate the Fremantle Highway is not forthcoming, but the Coast Guard itself does not ask for safety on board, says the research council. Otherwise it would be clear that the crew was in danger and the lifeboats were no longer available.

Evacuate

Now the Coast Guard only finds out if the coastguard plane flies above the ship at two in the morning and indicates that the boat is completely on fire and access to the lifeboats is closed. It must be evacuated immediately. But from Rotterdam, one of the rescue helicopters with a fire brigade team on board rises for 2.22 hours, because they still think there is the fire to extinguish.

The helicopter must then first drop the firefighters in Den Helder and refuel before he can move on to the Fremantle Highway. It will also take a while before the other helicopter takes off, partly because taxiing at the airport « took a relatively large amount of time ». Only at 3.35 am the helicopters reach the ship.

Part of the crew has already jumped overboard. At 2.45 a.m., great ‘fear and panic’ rule the people who have gathered on the upper deck. They see no other opportunity than jumping into the sea because they are smoked. It is a jump of more than thirty meters. They hear from the coast guard that it will be at least 45 minutes before a helicopter arrives. ‘If it’s a safe option to jump in the water, then do so so‘, the coast guard tells.

Delay

The first people on board jump into the sea from 3 am. Because of the blow to the water, some people fall out of consciousness, they do not tackle the life line. If the Coast Guard has fished the sixth seriously injured Springer out of the water, they indicate that jumping must be stopped immediately. One of the crew members dies of his injuries.

Ten minutes later the helicopters are there and the rest of the crew can be saved. The wounded victims must be taken directly to the hospital.

But due to poor ‘information sharing’, the Dutch Safety Board writes, the security regions are not well prepared for the arrival of sixteen victims from the helicopters. As a result, they are transported with a delay to hospitals in the region.

Drama

The cooperation between the emergency services must be better, the Dutch Safety Board judges, and it is on the coast guard to take the lead in it.

For the care providers of the Coast Guard itself, the event has also left deep impressions. Rescue workers told a year after the ship drama Omrop Fryslân How the sailors had to jump down from thirty meters. It looked, said one of the rescue workers, as « the images of the Twin Towers. »

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